Maintaining Your Mylar Sail

As some of you may be aware, at the Rum and Mince Pies last year there was a discussion regarding a series of creases that have been appearing on the sails of 288 and 253 which were some of the first made. I took these sails to Banks’ last week for them to look at, the conclusion they came too, is this is caused by ‘luff starvation’ because of the bendy mast we are using. It has been more apparent in the last season and this is caused by a shrinking bolt rope. This is something all sails experience and now banks’ leave a tail on the bolt rope.

As the rope shrinks it is causing compression of the Mylar (which is not shrinking) and creases. So the advice to all you Mylar sail owners out there is every so often look at your sail and if you start to see creases appearing it’s time to cut the stitches on the bolt rope and relieve the tension. I did this to 253 for the weekend and the difference looks good. It was blowing a F6 though.